r her, and then bolted himself in for the night.
For the night, that is, if Deerham would allow it to him. Hook's
daughter was slowly progressing towards recovery, and Jan would not need
to go to her.

Amilly was nodding over the fire, or, rather, where the fire had been,
for it had gone out. She inquired with wonder what her sister had been
doing, and where she had been. Deborah replied that she had been busy;
and they went upstairs to bed.

But not to sleep--for one of them. Deborah West lay awake through the
live-long night, tossing from side to side in her perplexity and
thought. Somewhat strict in her notions, she deemed it a matter of stern
necessity, of positive duty, that Sibylla should retire, at any rate for
a time, from the scenes of busy life. To enable her to do this, the news
must be broken to her. But how?

Ay, how? Deborah West rose in the morning with the difficulty unsolved.
She supposed she must do it herself. She believed it was as much a duty
laid upon her, the imparting these tidings to Sibylla, as the separating
herself from all social ties, the instant it was so imparted, would be
the duty of Sibylla herself. Deborah West went about her occupations
that morning, one imperative sentence ever in her thoughts: "It must be
done! it must be done!"

She carried it about with her, ever saying it, through the whole day.
She shrank, both for Sibylla's sake and her own, from the task she was
imposing upon herself; and, as we all do when we have an unpleasant
office to perform, she put it off to the last. Early in the morning she
had said, I will go to Verner's Pride after breakfast and tell her;
breakfast over, she said, I will have my dinner first and go then.

But the afternoon passed on, and she did not go. Every little trivial
domestic duty was made an excuse for delaying it. Miss Amilly, finding
her sister unusually bad company, went out to drink tea with some
friends. The time came for ordering in tea at home, and still Deborah
had not gone.

She made the tea and presided at the table. But she could eat
nothing--to the inward gratification of Master Cheese. There happened to
be shrimps--a dish which that gentleman preferred, if anything, to
pickled herrings; and by Miss Deborah's want of appetite he was able to
secure her share and his own, including the heads and tails. He would
uncommonly have liked to secure Jan's share also; but Miss Deborah
filled a plate and put them aside, against Jan c